


Holding the Fort

by Pitry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitry/pseuds/Pitry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And all that year, when Neville spoke out, the one thing that he asked himself was: What would Harry have done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New World Order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjmarlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 Reversathon for CJ.  
> With huge thanks to my beta, kjmom1! All mistakes are mine.

The first thing Neville Longbottom did when he returned home for the summer holidays was renew his grandmother's subscription to the _Daily Prophet_.

"There's nothing there worth reading," his gran muttered.

"I know, Gran," he said. "But when something happens, we'll see it there first."

He turned out to be right not two months later. Neville usually slept late on Saturday mornings, but on the morning of the second of August, his gran walked into the room at 6 a.m. and opened the curtains.

"What is it?" he mumbled, still half-asleep.

In response, she just handed over her copy of the _Daily Prophet_.

There were two headlines in the front page. His eyes were drawn immediately to a big photograph of Harry Potter, smiling awkwardly, his hair untidy as ever. But his smile at Harry's photograph lasted only two seconds. It was wiped from his face as soon as he read the headline. _Wanted for Questioning about Albus Dumbledore's Death_.

"They can't possibly think he had anything to do with Dumbledore's death!" he said angrily.

"I don't think they care much for Dumbledore's death," his gran answered. "Read the other one."

Only then did his eyes fall on the second piece. _Ministry reform: the Muggle-born registration commission_. He read the article, growing angrier and angrier, and his anger didn't subside when he followed the piece to its conclusion on page two. He didn't say anything when he finished reading, and neither did his gran. She only spoke when she left the room. "So it's started, then," she said. He lay back in bed and closed his eyes, but whatever he did, he couldn't fall asleep again.

He just hoped Harry was safe, wherever he was.

The _Quibbler_ reported the news as well, a couple of days later. Xenophilius Lovegood wrote that the Ministry had been overrun by Death Eaters, that Scrimgeour was dead, that Voldemort was behind the new policies, and that Harry had to run for his life. Who'd have thought, Neville thought gloomily, that they would reach the day the _Quibbler_ made more sense than the _Prophet_.

He wasn't subscribed to the _Quibbler_ , though. He never even considered it. It wasn't until Dean came visiting, magazine in hand, that he even remembered its existence and got to see that report.

The first knock on the door made Neville jump. Who could it be? It couldn't be - it couldn't be Death Eaters, he told himself off. They were pure-blood, his gran and he. They wouldn't come for them - at least, not yet. With that knowledge in his heart - but still clutching his wand - he opened the door.

"Dean!" he said in relief at the familiar face at the door.

"Can I come in?" Dean's voice was low, quiet, stressed. Now that Neville looked at his face, he could see that his expression was harassed, his eyes darting in every direction. He was nervous and he was afraid and he was on Neville's doorstep and all of a sudden Neville realised that if Dean was wanted by the Ministry, anyone could see him coming up to Neville's house. He nodded and showed him in.

Dean darted into the room. He only relaxed when he sat on the chair next to the kitchen table, far away from any window.

"Do you want anything?" Neville asked. "Water, tea, biscuits?"

"Coffee," Dean said, and Neville - who could finally use magic at home - touched his wand to the kettle and made a strong cup of coffee for Dean. He put some of his gran's chocolate biscuits on the table as well.

Dean drank from the coffee. Then he looked at Neville. "I got an owl from the Ministry," he said quietly.

Neville swore. "You're running for it?" he asked.

Dean nodded. "I thought of staying at first, I thought of going to the Ministry..."

"What? Whatever for? What could possibly make you go there?"

"My mum."

"Oh." Neville stared at his fingers for a moment. "What are you going to do?"

"I told her to go to her sister. She only lives in Brighton, but that's something. I hope..." Dean's voice broke. "I hope I'm not important enough. That if they can't find me, they won't go after her. She's a Muggle, man, she can't fight them. At first she was like 'Don't talk nonsense, what will I do all that time at Juliet's?' So I had to tell her what was going on, then the penny dropped - the Knut dropped, I guess. Then she said, 'I should never have let you go to that school'," he imitated his mother's voice.

Neville stopped looking at his fingers and looked at Dean, instead. "What are _you_ going to do?" he asked again.

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "I thought maybe leave the country. Or try hiding among the Muggles. Or... I don't know. I'll probably figure it out as I go along."

"You could stay here if you'd like," Neville said. "I'm sure Gran wouldn't mind."

"Thanks, but I can't - I can't put you in so much danger. They said in the paper what they do to... well. People who help people like me," he said the last words with unconcealed anger.

"Nonsense," this wasn't Neville - it was Gran, who came by the kitchen from her little garden at the back. "If you need a place to stay, you should remain here. We can keep them off."

"Thanks," Dean repeated. "But I think it's better I try on my own first. I do need..." his voice faltered. For a moment, he looked embarrassed. "My mum only had forty quid. And I don't have any Galleons at all, I meant to go change at Gringotts next week."

"I have just the thing," Gran said, then went to the drawer where she kept her emergency money. Neville knew the drawer - she had shown it to him when he came back from Hogwarts. 'If they come for us,' she had said, 'make sure to get this'. Now she took out the money and gave it all to Dean.

Dean's eyes widened when he took the little bag and saw the notes and heavy golden coins. "There must be two hundred quid in here!" he said in an awed voice.

"Two hundred and fifty," Gran said. "And fifty Galleons. Take it."

"I can't take all of it, that's too much, and what if you need it, I thought just maybe - "

"Take it," she looked at him sternly, the same way that always made Neville cower a bit under her gaze - even now, when it wasn't aimed at him. "I can go to Gringotts tomorrow and get some more. They won't say no to a Longbottom, and the Death Eaters are hardly going to come after us tomorrow. You take it now and put it to good use, like keeping yourself alive."

Dean nodded and put the small bag in his bigger one. "I'll pay you back," he said. "Every last Galleon. I promise."

"You just keep yourself alive, that'd be payment enough."

"Thank you," he said, then looked at Neville. "I better go."

Neville nodded. "Listen, if you're ever in a tight spot, if you need somewhere to run to, you can always come here."

"Thanks." He got up, and Neville got up after him. "I'll remember that. And Neville... if you see him, tell him good luck from me." He didn't say Harry's name, but he didn't have to. Neville understood.

"I'll do that," Neville promised. For a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other, then Neville hugged Dean. "Good luck," he said.

Dean nodded and left the little cottage.

The next time Neville had heard about him was two weeks later, when he saw Dean's name in the _Prophet_ , in a list of Muggle-borns who failed to turn themselves in to the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. Hermione Granger's name was also on that list. It was the first time Neville had smiled since Dean had left his house.

He didn't have much to smile about the next couple of weeks, either. He exchanged a few owls with Ginny, but her letters said absolutely nothing. After the second one, he started suspecting she was afraid someone would intercept her letters, and so he stopped writing altogether. He sent an owl to Luna, too, but that one never got a reply. Instead, he got the newest copy of the _Quibbler_. There wasn't a single article about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks there. Or about Nargles. He felt somewhat upset at that, and didn't write to Luna again.

As a matter of fact, Neville had started wondering whether there would be any point in going back to Hogwarts - especially, a few days before the beginning of term, when the _Daily Propher_ announced Severus Snape as the new headmaster. Maybe, he thought, he should join the fight. Like his parents had. He was of age now. He could fight. He should fight.

He told his gran that one evening. He couldn't remember her ever looking at him like that - with so much pride. The only time she looked even remotely as proud was the last summer, after she had heard what happened at the Ministry. But then she shook her head. "No, Neville," she said. "They say in the _Prophet_ you have to finish your education. And finishing your education might not be such a bad thing."

"What - under Death Eaters?" he rebelled at the idea.

"Not everyone at that school is a Death Eater. And there are still things you could learn. Things that would help you fight them, later on. Don't rush into the fight before you're ready, Neville," she said. "I wouldn't want..." her voice shook, her face was full of sorrow, and Neville looked at her in shock. It was the first time in his life he had seen her looking anything other than stern and self-assured. "It's you and me now, Neville," she said at last. "Just you and me. I know you'll fight in the end. We all will. But you should be ready when you do."

"I will, Gran," he said and hugged her.

And so, on the first on September, he found himself standing as usual on Platform Nine and Three Quarters and boarding the Hogwarts Express. The first person he saw on the train - the first person he wanted to see - was Ginny Weasley. She was sitting in one of the compartments, completely alone, and looking miserable.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey, Neville," she answered, and he sat down next to her.

"How are you?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything.

"How's Ron?"

"He's got Spattergroit."

Neville opened his mouth to ask whether he really got Spattergroit, and was it possible that he was somewhere else - with other people - when Luna walked into the compartment. "Oh, hello," she said, as if surprised to see them. Neville and Ginny smiled at one another.

"Hello, Luna," Neville said, and Luna sat in front of them.

"How was your summer?" she asked, and then immediately continued to talk. "Mine was rather horrible. The Death Eaters came by our house a few times to try and convince my father to stop printing the paper. They were quite rude about it."

"Oh, Luna, that's terrible!" Ginny said.

"Yes, it was quite horrible . But my father told them he'd print whatever he liked, and that they were free not to read it if they didn't want to. But now we'll be around Death Eaters all the time," she sighed, then fixed her eyes on Neville. "We're not going to keep silent, are we?" she asked.

Neville thought about what his gran said. Waiting with the fight until they were ready. But then he thought, what would Harry do?

"Of course we won't," he said, sounding a lot more assured of himself than he felt. "We'll give them hell."

Luna's smile warmed his heart. "Oh, this is fantastic!" she said. "It would be like the DA again. I still have the coin, you see, I kept it - I'm not sure we could use them without Hermione's coin, of course..." her voice trailed and she looked around, as if expecting to see Hermione. "I do hope they're alright," she said quietly.

Silence descended on them.

They remained silent until they heard a knock on the door. Neville raised his head and saw, to his surprise, not Seamus - as he had expected - but Hannah Abbott.

It had been a long while since either of them had seen Hannah. She was taken out of Hogwarts not long after the beginning of the school year, almost a year ago - after her mother had died at the hands of Death Eaters. Her Muggle-born mother, Neville remembered with a pinch to his heart. She used to smile a lot before, wave her hair around her and her body shook with laughter. Now she looked sombre and worried, and her hair was tied in a bun above her head, not unlike Professor McGonagall.

"Can I... can I join you?" she asked quietly.

"Sure," Ginny said. Hannah walked in and sat next to Luna. She opened her mouth, then closed it, and instead tapped her foot nervously on the train floor.

"How are you?" Ginny asked gently.

Hannah smiled sadly. "I didn't want to come back," she said. "I didn't want to leave my dad alone. But the Death Eaters said I had to."

"Yeah, they made it mandatory," Neville offered. He wasn't quite sure what else to say.

"Not for everyone," Hannah said darkly, and then it all burst out of her. "It's my fault! They took Justin away and it's all my fault!"

"How can it be - it's not your fault!" Ginny said.

"It is, it is, he sent me an owl, he asked me what to do when he got the summons from the Ministry; he didn't know what to do, and I said... I said... I said it was the Ministry and if he just cooperated with them nothing bad would happen!" No one said anything. Hannah sat there, staring at her knees, and wrought her hands. "No one's seen him in two weeks," she said finally. "His family have no idea where he is."

"It wasn't your fault," Neville said, looking for something to say. "It's the Death Eaters, it's the Ministry. It's not your fault and it's not Justin's."

"It could have been my mum," Hannah said quietly. Neville had no answer for that.

"What about - your friend? Dean Thomas?" she asked at last.

"Ran for it," Neville answered, thinking of Dean. He wondered where he was now.

"Gryffindors," Hannah said softly. A few tears rolled down her cheeks. Then she sniffed and looked up again at all of them. "I suppose Hermione Granger is with... with Harry?"

"Yeah," Ginny said quietly, almost as softly as Hannah's voice before. It was the first time any of them had mentioned Harry's name out loud.

"They're fighting, aren't they?"

"Yeah."

"I want to fight," Hannah said. "I know you're planning something, the three of you. Whatever it is. I want in. For my mum, and for - for Justin." She crossed her arms and challenged them with her glare.

Neville looked at Ginny for a moment, then at Luna. Then he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Alright. The more the merrier, eh?"

"Oh!" Luna said all of a sudden, and they all jumped.

"What is it?"

"The trolley lady already passed. I wanted a pumpkin pasty."

Neville and Ginny looked at each other and laughed. Even Hannah cracked a smile. "Come on, I'm hungry too." The two of them left.

Neville watched Luna go. He could almost believe she was the same way she'd always been, light-hearted and carefree, walking into the corridor, with her dirty blonde hair waving behind her. Perhaps this year, he thought, he'd finally pluck up the courage to ask her out. He doubted it, but it might just happen.

He put any question of asking Luna out of his mind, and focused on Ginny. Once again, the two of them were alone in the compartment. "Does he really have Spattergroit?" Neville asked quietly.

Ginny looked out the corridor, as if checking no one was in earshot outside, even though the compartment door was closed. "No," she said, just as quietly. "He's with Harry and Hermione."

"What are they doing?"

"I don't know."

"It's okay, Ginny, no one's here."

"I really don't know," she said, still quietly. "They wouldn't say. Even after - Remus said he saw them. Wouldn't tell us where they were, just that he saw them. And that they didn't tell him, either. Harry said..." she bit her lip.

"They are fighting him, though?"

"Yeah. I think - I think Dumbledore told Harry how he could defeat him. Before he died."

"Okay," Neville said.

By the time Luna and Hannah were back - with Seamus tagging along behind them - Neville and Ginny were deep in conversation about Quidditch. And by the end of the ride, when the train stopped in Hogsmeade station, the compartment was full of ex-DA members, and Neville's mood when he left the train and took the carriage to school was almost cheerful.

His good mood didn't last long. All it took was one look at Snape in the Headmaster's chair to quench it. McGonagall's hard expression, the Death Eaters at the table, and Snape's speech at the beginning of the feast did nothing to help his mood.

But none of it was as bad as when he and Seamus walked into the seventh-year boys' dormitories. There were five beds in the room, but only the two of them. To his left, the bed Dean always took. He could almost see him now, hanging his posters of Muggle sports teams and some of his drawings and joking with Seamus. To his right, Ron's bed, that always had heaps of clothes on it, even on the first day back. And next to it... he walked to Harry's bed. His fingers trailed on the wooden frame, on the red curtains. He sat on the bed heavily. This was all wrong. Harry should be here with them. But he was out there, running for his life, trying to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and they were stuck in here, and all of a sudden whatever they did to fight the Death Eaters from within Hogwarts seemed completely meaningless. A children's club, pretending to be grown-ups, playing make-believe and acting as if anything they could do would matter in the long run.

Neville and Seamus didn't exchange another word before they went to sleep.


	2. Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting

If waking up to a half-empty room didn't serve enough of a reminder for Neville of the friends that were gone this year, his first class of the day made sure to drive the point home. Herbology was by far Neville's favourite subject, and he had always looked forward to the class. With Professor Sprout as the teacher, it felt almost like the old Hogwarts again. Almost.

Professor Sprout welcomed them all in, and told them that in addition to their written and practical N.E.W.T.s, their final Herbology mark would also be comprised of a project - a study of Dittany. And then she told them to divide into pairs. Padma and Parvati were already sitting together. Hannah Abbott rushed to Ernie Macmillan's desk. Malfoy sat with Zabini, but Neville had no intention of going to sit next to either of them. Usually, he would have sat with Hermione, as Harry and Ron partnered together. But Harry, Hermione and Ron were not in the class. The only other person without a partner was Daphne Greengrass, who was in Slytherin.

As far as Slytherins went, Neville supposed Daphne Greengrass wasn't as bad as most of them. She wasn't exactly a part of Malfoy's gang, although he had seen her with them at times. She didn't usually bully Muggle-borns in the corridors in the years before, or at least, he had never seen her do that. Nor did she ever make any comments towards him. In fact, she didn't seem to care much for the rest of the school at all. She just spent her time with her friends from Slytherin House, looking haughtily at everyone else and doing her own thing. As far as he knew, she had no Death Eaters in her family, and she had never voiced support for the Death Eaters or Voldemort out loud. But she was still a Slytherin, and he still had no interest in spending the whole year doing a project with her in what _used_ to be his favourite subject.

Professor Sprout must have realised what had happened. She didn't admonish him for not going directly to Daphne Greengrass's side. Instead, she looked around the classroom, her lip curled in displeasure, then she sighed. "I suppose you better partner with Greengrass, Longbottom," she said in a not unsympathetic voice. Neville sighed as well and went to sit next to Greengrass. When he passed Hannah and Ernie's desk, Hannah whispered to him, "Sorry." Neville spent the rest of the class without exchanging a single word with Greengrass.

He faired a little better during the next period, in Charms - Seamus was taking this class as well, and they immediately sat together. Professor Flitwick started the class as usual by reading their names, and paused suddenly after Parvati's name. Neville was sure he knew what name appeared in the roster that Professor Flitwick wouldn't read. He looked to his right, to the empty desk where Harry and Ron often sat, and his heart sank.

And then, after lunch, they had their first Muggle Studies class. In Neville's mind, it wasn't as much Muggle Studies as 'Introductory Death Eating'. The teacher, who Snape had introduced the night before as Alecto Carrow, started the class by reading the names as well. She, too, paused after Parvati's name, but where Flitwick looked stricken not to read Harry's name, she just smiled a wide smile.

"Potter, Harry," she smirked and scanned the room, as if expecting Harry to show up out of the blue. Once she was satisfied with the deafening silence, she continued reading the names, the smile still on her face. Neville had the impression she only read out Harry's name to remind everyone he was not there.

And then she started talking about Muggles. She called them stupid, and pathetic, and compared them to monkeys and dogs and other animals. She spoke of how disgusting they were, and how nasty, and how they had driven wizards into hiding. She spoke and spoke, and Neville became angrier and angrier.

And next to Neville, Seamus became more and more flushed, his expression turned uglier and uglier, and his eyes darted around as if he were trapped.

All of a sudden, Neville remembered - Seamus's father was a Muggle. He sneaked another look at Seamus, who was now punching holes in his parchment helplessly. His eye caught an empty desk after Seamus, and then he remembered a class, much like this one, two years before, and one student getting on his feet and calling their teacher a liar.

"You're lying," the words escaped his mouth before he had the time to think properly of what he was doing. Seamus gaped at him. Neville had the feeling the rest of the students in the class were doing the exact same thing.

"I beg your pardon?" Carrow looked at him with her malevolent eyes.

"I said you're lying," Neville said, and to his surprise, his voice came out stronger this time. "Muggles are just like us. They're people too. They didn't force us to do _anything_ \- we're the ones with magic, not them. And if you say otherwise, you're lying."

A small applause started in the room, and Neville could hear some of it came from very close to him - from Seamus. But the applause died down quickly enough under Carrow's contemptuous smile.

"Longbottom, isn't it?" she asked in a dangerous voice.

"Yeah, that's right," he said.

Her smile widened. "Well, with family like that, no wonder you've been taught to be such a blood-traitor. A shame, really, as the Longbottoms are an old, _proud_ pure-blood family. Oh, if your ancestors could have heard you now, how troubled they'd be."

"I think my ancestors would have been much less displeased with me as they would be with you," Neville answered. His heart raced at about a million beats per second. He didn't quite understand how he managed to stop his voice from shaking.

Carrow's smile just widened. "No, Longbottom. You have been lied to. But that's alright, that's exactly what I'm here for. To undo the terrible damage that has been inflicted on you and teach you right from wrong. You should be proud of your heritage!"

"I think I already know right from wrong," Neville answered. "And I'm proud of my heritage. I'm just not proud of belonging to any group that includes people like you."

It was lucky, perhaps, that the bell rang at that exact same moment. Carrow's smile had been erased from her face, and had she gone on much longer, Neville was no longer sure what he would have said. But it was worth it, he knew, and if he needed any reminding, he got it as soon as they left the classroom, when Seamus looked at him and said, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Neville answered.

He was the next person to bring it up again, not Seamus, when they were sitting in the Gryffindor common room that evening and abusing Carrow. Ginny Weasley, who had her first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson that day, brought even worse news about the other new teacher - Amycus Carrow, Alecto's brother.

"He's the most horrible person on earth," she declared angrily, "even worse than Snape. Snape never asked us to - to - he started with Unforgivable Curses!"

"To teach how to defend yourselves against them?" Seamus's brow wrinkled.

"To teach _them_. They want us to torture people, Seamus!"

Neville looked at her in horror. She couldn't be serious. But she was.

"What did you do?" Seamus whispered.

"Told him I wasn't going to do it," she said. "Then he called me a blood-traitor and said how they're going to _educate_ me." Her nostrils flared when she said the last sentence.

"The other Carrow said the same to Neville," Seamus told her quietly.

"And we need to show them we're not going to just sit down and take it," Neville said.

"How are we going to do that?" Lavender asked in interest.

Neville smiled. "I think I'm going to leave them a message..."

Ginny insisted on coming with him. He was a bit reluctant - after all, it was after hours, and if they were caught they were likely to be severely punished, but she made it obvious she wasn't going to take no for an answer, so they left together after a minute or two.

It took them five minutes to reach the Great Hall, which was dark and abandoned now.

Ginny paused in confusion once they walked into the room. "What did you have in mind?" she asked in a whisper.

"Watch," he said, then flicked his wand, in a neat little charm Flitwick had taught them the year before. The words _Dumbledore's Army, still recruiting_ appeared on the wall, right behind the teachers' table. They were huge and black and could probably be seen from every corner of the room.

"Brilliant," Ginny whispered behind him. "Just, you missed one thing," she said, then waved her own wand. The black letters turned red and gold - the Gryffindor colours. They quietly admired their handiwork, then sneaked back to their dormitories. The whole thing didn't take more than twenty minutes.

By the time they came down to breakfast the next morning, there was quite the queue in the entrance to the Great Hall. Ginny and Neville smirked at each other in appreciation. When they got in, the scene was even more satisfying - Amycus Carrow, who didn't seem to be very good with magic, was waving his wand, trying to remove the writing - but to no avail. The entire school was staring at him - some in shock, most in amusement, and the moment Neville walked in, members of the DA smirked at him in appreciation or raised their thumbs to signal their approval. The news had apparently already travelled, and the entire school knew it had something to do with him.

The down side of that, of course, was that the rumours had also reached the Carrows' ears. Neville hadn't even started on his toast when he realised someone was standing behind him. Alecto Carrow tapped on his shoulder.

"Mr Longbottom," she said unpleasantly. "I hear you might have something to do with this?" She pointed at the teachers' table, where her brother was still failing to remove the inscription.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Professor," he answered.

"Don't you?" her voice was now low and dangerous. "I think you should come with me."

"Professor Carrow," another voice joined the conversation, and Neville groaned. Just what he needed - Snape. "What is going on here?"

"Longbottom's been vandalising the school, Headmaster," Carrow said. "I was just going to show him what happens at Hogwarts to students who insist on disrupting the school's routine."

Snape paused, then looked at the graffitied wall. Neville was doomed.

Snape opened his mouth, and Neville was sure he was going to tell Carrow to take him away, when he said - "Have you seen him putting the graffiti up?"

Neville's jaw dropped. Snape - _defending_ him?

"Who else could it be, Snape?" Carrow asked sulkily. She, too, seemed to have realised things were not going according to plan.

"And yet, we need proof before punishment," Snape said. Neville almost allowed himself to breathe, until Snape continued. "I will question Longbottom in my office about this incident."

"I am in charge of punishment, Headmaster," Carrow said. "The Minister - "

"And if there is punishment to be delivered, I will happily let you handle Longbottom, who is a menace at the best of times and could definitely benefit from some discipline," Snape said, sounding much more like his usual self. " _However_ , he needs to be questioned before his guilt can be ascertained. Come with me, Longbottom."

With a sigh, Neville put down his toast and followed Snape. Snape led him through the entrance and straight to the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office - Dumbledore's office, until last June. Neville remembered Harry's story after that night, that it was Snape who had murdered the old headmaster, and he felt the hatred rise in him, in addition to the familiar fear.

Snape paused in front of the gargoyle, then said in an almost soft voice, "Dumbledore." The gargoyle jumped to life and let them pass, and Neville was filled with an even stronger hate. Why did he use Dumbledore's name as a password? Was it a reminder for him, a reminder that he was the one who had murdered the greatest wizard who had ever lived?

He said nothing as the stairs rose, and nothing when Snape gestured at a chair in front of his desk - _Dumbledore's_ desk - and said, "Sit," in his unpleasant voice. Neville sat, and looked up, to see the portrait of Albus Dumbledore snoozing in his frame. He had always been a bit afraid of the old headmaster, but there was nothing in the world he wouldn't have given to have him there now instead of Snape.

"So, Longbottom. Have you taken to vandalising the school?"

Neville couldn't find his voice. Snape's black eyes burrowed into him, and for a moment he had the terrible thought that the Death Eater could see into his thoughts. He swallowed, and tried to speak up. It was much harder than yesterday, during class. The Carrows were awful - but this was _Snape_.

"Professor Carrow tells me you made quite the passionate speech yesterday in class," Snape continued. "Who'd have thought you had it in you, Longbottom?" he said in a low voice, almost a whisper, and studied Neville intently. Neville shrank into his seat, but Snape's gaze was relentless.

"Not so talkative now, are you, Longbottom," he said. There was nothing but derision in his voice. Neville couldn't make himself answer.

"Things have changed at Hogwarts, Longbottom," Snape continued. "Things have changed in the entire wizarding world. You do not want to be caught breaking school rules. It will not end in a detention with the caretaker. Am I making myself clear?"

Neville nodded, his throat completely dry. He didn't think he could voice a reply, even if he wanted to.

"Very well. You are free to leave."

Neville bolted out of the seat and rushed to the door. His hand was already on the door handle, when something caught his eye - a sword was hung on Snape's wall, next to the door. He recognised that sword - it was the Sword of Gryffindor. The same sword Harry Potter had pulled out of the Sorting Hat five years previously. Neville paused, then turned to Snape. His voice came out high and unnatural, but it did come out at last. "I'm not afraid of them," he said. "I'm not afraid of the Carrows."

Snape studied him for a moment before answering. "Then you are a fool," he said. "Now leave."

Neville left.

The thought of the sword accompanied him all through that day. He barely heard Hannah Abbott, who came to him demanding answers about their prank of the night before.

"I thought this was supposed to be all of us, together," she said angrily.

"Sorry?" he asked. He had missed half of her sentence. "What are you talking about?"

"'Dumbledore's Army, still recruiting'? What's with the Gryffindor colours? We're in it too. We were in Dumbledore's Army too."

"Oh - _oh_!" He finally understood the source of her anger. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean - it wasn't an attempt to shut you out," he explained. "We didn't plan this."

"Whatever you do next, we want to participate," she said.

"You're right," he said. "I'll let you know the next time. I promise."

That evening, he didn't sit down in the Gryffindor common room. Instead, they were sitting in the Seventh-year boys' dormitories, with Seamus, Ginny, and Luna Lovegood. He didn't want too many people to know about the sword, not until they had decided exactly what to do about it.

Ginny, of course, was furious to hear that Snape had the sword. "How dare he!" she kept on saying. "After Dumbledore - after everything! That filthy Death Eater! How - dare - he!"

"That's what I thought, too," Neville said quietly. "I just don't know what to do about it."

"Isn't it obvious?" Luna asked. "We take the sword."

Seamus spluttered in the corner. Neville started looking for reasons this was completely impossible. But Ginny thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. "Of course," she said. "Yeah. He doesn't _deserve_ the sword - he's a Slytherin. Even if he weren't the one who... We're Gryffindors. It should be here."

"Have you two lost your minds?" Seamus demanded.

"It'll be dangerous," Neville pointed out.

But Ginny had made up her mind, and there was no moving her. "I'm doing it," she said.

"Me too," Luna said.

Neville and Seamus looked at each other. Neville couldn't deny that he liked the idea of having the sword here, in their dormitories, rather than in Snape's office. "Yeah, alright," he said.

"You're completely nuts," Seamus said in an awed voice. "The lot of you. I mean, I already knew Lovegood has lost it, but you two..."

"Does this mean you're not coming?" Ginny said and raised her eyebrows in a challenge.

"No," Seamus said. "I'm coming. I just wanted to make it clear I'm doing it because of social pressure and not because I'm nuts like the rest of you."

"Oh, it could be Wrackspurts, I suppose," Luna said. "They are known to affect the mind and make it more susceptible to outside influences."

Seamus opened his mouth to say something. Probably to ask what Wrackspurts were. Neville stepped on his foot. Ginny asked in her most serious voice, "Really?"

Seamus thought they were going straight away, and so did Ginny, but Neville remembered his promise to Hannah Abbott. For a moment, he thought of breaking it - after all, this wasn't a _school_ thing, not even a DA thing - it was a Gryffindor thing. They were going after the Sword of Gryffindor, weren't they? But, a guilty thought nudged at him, Luna was coming with them, and she was a Ravenclaw. And he really did promise Hannah he'd tell her. So to everyone's disappointment, he told them that Operation Save Our Sword, as they started calling it, would have to wait until the next day. He'd tell Hannah over at Herbology, and see if she wanted to join.

They spent the rest of the evening in the common room, playing Exploding Snap and abusing the Carrows with Parvati and Lavender. But the more they discussed the Carrows, the worse Seamus's mood had become. Neville couldn't blame him - they had their first Defence Against the Dark Arts class that day, as if it could be called that. Dark Arts was more like it - like Ginny had said, Amycus Carrow started with teaching them Unforgivable Curses, and all the while, he was talking about using them against Muggles and Muggle-borns. Put them in their right place, he said, and Seamus broke his quill in anger. Neville was threatened once again, this time that he would suffer the Cruciatus curse himself if he did not shut up.

Luna stayed with them that evening. At first, she said she had to finish a project for Transfiguration with Ginny. Then, as time went by, she joined their game of Exploding Snap, and before they noticed, it was past midnight, and Luna realised slightly too late that she should not be in the corridors at all.

"You can stay in our dormitories," Ginny offered. "We have a - " she paused. "There's an empty bed there."

Luna nodded.

"Anyway," Ginny said, "I'm going to brush my teeth, I'll be right back."

"Aren't you going to sleep?" Luna asked Neville gently. He was sitting next to her and staring at the fireplace, where a merry fire was burning, completely oblivious to how depressing Hogwarts had become.

"There's too many empty beds in our dormitories," he answered shortly, but Luna nodded, and he knew she understood. "It's not as fun there as it used to be."

"I miss them too," Luna said gently.

"I just know things would have been different. If they were here. They would - " Neville thought of Harry, who had started the DA, and fought Umbridge and Death Eaters and went with Dumbledore to find a way to defeat You-Know-Who himself. "They would have _fought_."

"We are fighting. As much as we can."

"It's not enough," Neville said. "I just know he would have thought of something brilliant if he were here. Something to really stop the Carrows. To get rid of Snape."

"You're doing the best you can," Luna said quietly, then leaned on his arm. Neville nodded and hugged her, and quietly, almost to himself, he whispered, "I know. I just don't think it's enough."

***

Neville whispered the plan to Hannah the next morning, before the entrance to the Herbology classroom. They had a theoretical class inside the castle, and Professor Sprout hadn't arrived yet, and so Neville thought it was the perfect opportunity to divulge their plan to Hannah, right under the portrait of an old and deaf wizard who always made faces at them. Hannah said she wanted in immediately. Ernie seemed a little more reluctant, but Neville told him it was fine and that too many people just made the whole operation more dangerous. Ernie looked relieved - even though he whispered his declaration of loyalty to the cause and that he would _definitely_ want to take part in the next thing they came up with. Then Professor Sprout walked in, and Neville walked to his seat next to Daphne Greengrass. She gave him a curious look, but said nothing, and he didn't offer any explanations. The lesson was the most boring Herbology class he had ever sat.

They all met at ten o'clock that night in the corridor that led to the Great Hall, and tiptoed their way towards the gargoyle. Neville suggested at first that Seamus and Hannah stay behind as guards, but Hannah wouldn't hear of it, and as Luna pointed out, there wasn't really any way they could alert the three of them if someone did come up.

They almost made it. Neville whispered the password - _Dumbledore_ \- to the gargoyle, and the five of them climbed on the rising staircase. A simple whisper of _Alohomora_ was enough to open the door, and there it was - the sword, next to the door, where it had been the last time Neville was there. Luna levitated the sword down, and Neville grabbed it with both hands.

"Well, well, well," they heard a voice and the lights were turned on. Snape was standing at the other side of the room, together with Amycus Carrow. His eyes fell on each of them in turn, and Neville had the unpleasant feeling that they lingered on him for just a little bit longer. His lips curled into an unpleasant smile. "Walking around the school after hours, breaking into the Headmaster's office, and - what is that? Attempted theft of a priceless artefact of wizard history?" Snape said, as if reciting the accusations against them.

Next to him, Amycus Carrow laughed gleefully. "Oh, this is excellent. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, _and_ Hufflepuff. After we're through with you, no one in your houses will ever dare break the school rules again," he cackled.

"I will decide their method of discipline, Amycus," Snape said lazily.

This, however, did not sit well with his Dark Arts professor. "We are in charge of discipline, Snape!" Carrow said in an angry voice. "That was the Minister's instruction! That was what - " he paused, glanced at the children, then said more quietly, "That was what _he_ said."

"I am very well aware of what your role in this school is, Amycus," Snape said irritably. Despite the grave situation they were in, Neville had to swallow his smirk. Snape had wanted so much to get power, and now he had other Death Eaters he had to compete with. Serves them right, he thought wildly. All of them.

"However," Snape continued, "they were caught breaking into _my_ office. I think it is only appropriate _I_ shall set the punishment. Don't forget who is the Headmaster, Amycus."

"Yes, Headmaster," Carrow answered sulkily.

"Ms Weasley, Ms Lovegood, Ms Abbott, and Mr Finnigan," he sneered at the four of them, "you will serve detention with Hagrid. There are duties in the forest that must be attended to."

"With Hagrid?" Amycus protested, but Snape silenced him with a raised finger.

"Mr Longbottom," Snape's sneer was now directed at Neville. He eyed the sword for a moment, then looked at Neville. "Give me the sword."

Neville didn't move.

"Give me the sword! Now!"

Reluctantly, Neville walked to the Headmaster and handed him the Sword of Gryffindor. Snape grabbed it and pulled it roughly out of Neville's hands. His eyes were on Neville the whole time, and despite the pounding of his heart and his dry mouth, Neville didn't avert his gaze. Harry wouldn't, he knew. Harry would look Snape straight in the eye and show him he wasn't afraid of him. Neville could do the same, even if he had to fake that last bit.

"Now, Mr Longbottom..." Snape smiled his unpleasant smile again. "You will serve your detention with me."

Despite himself, Neville swallowed.

His detention was set for the next evening. At seven o'clock, completely terrified, he stood in front of the gargoyle and whispered the password. As the stairs rose, he started wondering what his punishment will be. Would Snape use the Cruciatus curse on him? Did he have some other method of torture? What if he made Neville watch while he tortured someone else? Neville's mind was full of terrifying scenarios. He barely managed to move his legs when the staircase stopped rising and the door to the Headmaster's office was in front of him.

Harry would walk to his punishment with head held high, he knew, and somehow he found the willpower to move forward and knock on the door.

"Enter," Severus Snape's unpleasant voice was heard from beyond the door. Neville entered.

"Sit, Longbottom," he said shortly and gestured at the chair in front of him. Neville eyed the chair suspiciously, then sat, as defiantly as he could, in front of Snape. Snape didn't even notice. Chains didn't spring from the chair, nor did it capture Neville in any way - it seemed to be a simple, normal chair. The chair was not involved in Neville's punishment. For some reason, it didn't make him feel any better.

"You will do lines for me," Snape said. Neville could only gape at him. _Lines_? But he broke into his office! He tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor!

"Yes, sir," he said in a shaking voice.

"You will write, 'I will not incite others into breaking school rules," Snape's gaze was fixed on Neville.

"Yes, sir," Neville said and now he couldn't keep the confusion out of his voice. So far, this detention was going much better than he expected.

"You have parchment and quill in front of you. Start now."

"Yes, sir," Neville answered and started writing. It was a normal quill. It was a normal parchment. It was... the most boring, unexciting detention in the world. And all of that, with Snape watching.

It was at least half an hour of writing before Snape spoke again. "I have told you before, Longbottom. Things have changed here at Hogwarts." Neville didn't answer. "You are risking more than your academic career when you flagrantly break the rules of this school. The next time, the price to pay may be a lot more personal, and a lot more painful." Neville still did not answer.

The silence lasted perhaps five minutes. "Tell me, Longbottom, why did you try stealing that sword?"

Neville's hand paused in the middle of the word 'incite'.

"Well?" Snape asked.

"It's Gryffindor's sword. Sir."

Snape mouth was closed. His black eyes were fixed on Neville. "You have not, perhaps, been asked to steal it? For someone else? Someone who could not access the school himself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Neville said truthfully.

"Where's Potter?" Snape asked, almost in a whisper.

Neville straightened his back and looked back at Snape. "Fighting You-Know-Who," he said.

"You know where he is."

"I don't. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"You stole that sword for Potter."

"I didn't. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"Where - is - Potter?!"

Neville didn't shift his gaze. "Fighting your master," he answered. "For all of us."

They stared at one another, the two of them, for a few moments longer. Snape was the first to break eye contact. "Finish your lines," he said gruffly, and Neville started writing again, his heart feeling lighter than it had since he set foot in the castle. He had defeated Severus Snape. Another half hour of writing those useless lines, and he was free to go.

Before he left, his eyes travelled to the spot by the door. The sword of Gryffindor was no longer there.

The seventh-year boys' dormitories inside Gryffindor Tower was full when he got there. Not just Seamus, Ginny and Luna, but Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff; Padma Patil, Michael Corner, Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein from Ravenclaw; and their entire year of Gryffindors, or what was left of it - Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. It was the entire DA, collected in one room. And they all looked relieved to see him in one piece.

"Neville!" Seamus called. "We were so worried, mate!"

"We thought - I mean - Snape!" Ernie said, obviously pale.

"It's alright," he calmed them down. "He just gave me lines."

"Lines?!" Terry boot repeated, as if the word offended him. "You got caught stealing Gryffindor's sword and all you got is _lines_?"

"Hey, don't complain," Neville laughed.

Luna just walked to him and hugged him. He hugged her back tightly. "I'm alright," he whispered. "Really."

"Is that all he wanted?" Ginny asked, and Neville, who had detached himself from Luna, now looked at her.

"Not quite. He - he asked me about..." he hesitated. "He thought we tried to steal the sword for someone else."

"For who?"

"Harry."

The declaration was greeted with the same confusion as he felt himself. "Harry?" Seamus repeated. "Why would we steal the sword for Harry?"

"I dunno. Maybe he's getting paranoid. Serves him right, too, after what he did... But he kept on asking me where was Harry, whether we stole the sword for him, if we're still in touch..."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him Harry was going to get rid of his master, then get rid of him." Not _quite_ true, Neville had to admit, but it had the right ring to it, and after all, he _almost_ said so - just not in as many words. And a small white lie was worth it to see everyone smiling in appreciation. It wasn't appreciation for him, he knew - and that was fine. It was appreciation for Harry. As it should be.

"Look, guys," he said, "it's almost nine o'clock. I think it's better half the school didn't sleep here tonight, so you better get going to your own houses."

"Yeah..." everyone muttered reluctantly. "But the next time you do something," Ernie said, "you let us know. All of us."

"Time we caused some havoc in school," Anthony Goldstein sniggered.

"You can count on it," Neville promised, and they all left the room.

He started rummaging in his trunk to find his Herbology book - he still needed to finish that essay for Professor Sprout, or at least make a _start_ on it - when he realised he wasn't alone in the room. And it wasn't Seamus there, either. It was Luna.

"Hey," he said, slightly confused.

"Hey," she smiled and sat on his bed, next to him.

"You're going to stay here again tonight?"

"Maybe," she said. "I don't like sleeping in our dormitories these days."

"Too quiet."

"Yeah."

He put his hand on hers. "I know the feeling," he said.

"I'm really glad nothing bad happened to you with Snape," she said quietly. Her face was very close to his. As she mentioned Snape, he thought again of standing up to the teacher who had made his life miserable for the past six years, and all of a sudden he felt brave, braver than he had ever felt before. Brave enough to do something he had wanted to do all of last year, but could never pluck up the courage.

He lowered his head a bit and kissed Luna. Surprisingly, she kissed him back.

Even more surprisingly - or perhaps, not - the kiss was far from mind-blowing. He didn't quite know where to put his teeth, or his tongue, and she didn't seem to have figured it out either. And the thoughts that ran through his head were all ridiculous: so this was kissing, he thought - not all it was cracked up to be. It was awkward... _this_ was what he had been afraid of all that time?

Somewhere, inside his throat, a giggle started. He tried to stifle it and kiss Luna properly, but he didn't quite know how to - what was he supposed to do with his tongue, damn it, and wasn't this supposed to be an instinct?! he thought irritably, and it just made the giggle stronger, until he had to break the kiss and let the laughter escape him.

He was afraid he had hurt Luna's feelings, and was trying to calm down enough to tell her it definitely wasn't her, but she was already ahead of him. "I think you're suffering from a Wrackspurt infection," she said critically. "There's probably be a nest somewhere in here."

Stopping the laughter was a lost cause now.

***

_Long live Harry Potter!_ , said the graffiti near the big hourglasses, right at the entrance to the Great Hall. _Down with the Death Eaters!_ had appeared right next to the gargoyle leading to Snape's office. The exclamation mark was drawn on the gargoyle itself. And the inscription _Dumbledore's Army, still recruiting_ appeared in different places on the school's walls once every three days, just about, and every time Snape or Filch or the Carrows removed it with a scowl, it appeared again somewhere else.

The rest of the teachers were much more friendly than Neville had ever seen them. Professor Sprout often gave him her own books about rare and cool plants; Professor Flitwick developed the habit of giving him twenty points just for showing up to class. And while he had no classes with Professor McGonagall anymore, she awarded him with one of her rare smiles every time they crossed paths, and soon the smiles weren't rare at all.

Madam Pomfrey always gave him chocolate when he left the hospital wing.

Neville's visits to the hospital wing became more frequent together with the graffiti. In past years, he used to come to the hospital wing because he had fallen from his broom, because he missed a step, because he slipped on an icy patch, or because of any number of ridiculous accidents that had always happened to him. These days, he found himself in the hospital wing for different reasons.

"It should heal in no time, it won't even scar," Madam Pomfrey promised as she wiped the blood from the gash on his cheek with a potion-soaked rag. That was Alecto Carrow's handiwork in Muggle Studies class. "If you apply this ointment three times a day, this should be alright," Madam Pomfrey said with doubt and looked at the result of the curse again. That was Amycus Carrow in the latest Dark Arts class. "I don't know what to do with you, Longbottom," she said quietly and bandaged Neville's hand after another detention session with the Carrows. There was no hint of her usual impatience in her voice. " All the staff feel the same way as you do," she looked around to make sure she wasn't overheard, "but you need to be careful."

And then came the class about the Cruciatus curse. Carrow had elected him, Neville, to perform the curse. Neville refused, of course. "I won't do it," he said, and looked directly at Carrow.

" _Crucio_ ," said Amycus Carrow lazily. It was a short burst of pain - Neville had endured worse in the past. But he still found himself panting on the floor afterwards. Carrow didn't seem to care. "Now, will you perform the curse?" he asked in a contemptuous voice. Neville was about to say that no, he wouldn't, but then the bell rang.

"We will try this again next time," Carrow said and left the class, without checking on Neville.

"You okay?" someone asked him - Seamus, most likely.

"Yeah, fine," Neville panted. "I just think - I'll stay here on the floor for a bit. S'nice here. Cold."

Someone offered him a hand, to help him up. It wasn't Seamus - it was a girl's hand. Neville took it nonetheless and, with her help, he managed to pull himself up.

It was Daphne Greengrass, his Slytherin Herbology partner. She didn't say anything, didn't ask how he was, just looked at him for a moment, as if making sure he was alright, then shrugged and walked away. Neville watched her go in confusion. Why would Daphne Greengrass help him?

Daphne called after another one of the Slytherin girls, Pansy Parkinson, and they left the classroom together. Behind them walked Goyle and Crabbe, who made sure to send mocking sniggers at Neville before leaving. Neville thought of the proper response, and then was distracted by something else - Malfoy wasn't with them.

Malfoy was still sitting in his seat, packing slowly his quill and parchment. He raised his head to look at Neville, and to Neville's surprise, there wasn't the usual sneer on his face, or anything like Crabbe and Goyle's mocking smirks. He looked almost scared. Slowly, reluctantly, he got out of his chair and started walking towards the door - but stopped in front of Neville.

"Just perform the damn curse, Longbottom, and get it over with," he said. To Neville's surprise, there wasn't any contempt in his voice. "All they want is to see you do it once and then they'll get off your back."

Malfoy walked out of the classroom.

"Death Eater," Seamus muttered behind him. "Come on," he told Neville, "Let's go."

"Yeah..." Neville said, still staring at the place where Malfoy stood a moment ago. He wasn't sure why, but Draco Malfoy's expression stayed in his mind that night, when they sneaked out to put some more graffiti on the school's walls.

The next class went pretty much the same way, until... "If you won't do it, someone else will," Carrow warned.

"If enough people refused to do it, maybe no one will in the end," Neville said.

Carrow's smile widened. "Oh," he said, his voice dripping with malevolence, "I think I can find one or two who will. Vincent," he called, and Crabbe got up from his seat and walked towards the two of them. He had a vicious smile on his face. "Perform the curse on Longbottom."

"Yes, sir," Crabbe said. He smirked at Neville as he aimed his wand.

They told him later that he screamed for such a long time, that Snape came down to see what was going on. They told him later that Snape had to shout at Crabbe and Carrow to stop. They told him later that Crabbe went on and on, even after Snape had started shouting, and that in the end, Snape had to curse Crabbe to make him stop.

Neville didn't remember any of that. The next thing he knew, he woke up in the hospital. Around him were Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, but also Ginny and Luna and Hannah and Seamus. He was released from the hospital two hours later, with a huge chunk of Honeyduke's best chocolate in his hand, and a promise to Madam Pomfrey not to show up at the hospital wing for at least two weeks.

He suspected he would have to break that promise.

"I know what you're doing," someone said behind him. He turned around - and saw Zacharias Smith. Great.

"Good," he said. "I want everyone to know."

"And it's the rest of the DA, isn't it? You've taken charge, now that..." Now that Harry was gone.

Neville looked at Smith defiantly. "I don't s'pose you want to join again now?"

Smith looked down. At least, Neville thought, he had the decency to be ashamed. "I can't..." he started mumbling. "Look, I don't like this any more than you, alright?" he managed to look Neville in the eye in the end. "But I just lower my head, keep quiet, and hope it'll end soon. I really do hope Potter will succeed with... I dunno, whatever it is he's doing. If he hasn't just run for it."

"You're pure-blood, aren't you," Neville said quietly.

"Yeah," Smith shifted uneasily.

"Yeah," Neville repeated. "That's what they tell me too. Bow your head, keep quiet, _we can get through this_." He didn't have to add the obvious.

"I don't know how you do it," Smith confessed. "I can't do this. I'm not as brave as you."

Neville shook his head. "This isn't bravery. Just common sense. Just... I dunno. It's got nothing to do with being _brave_."

Smith looked at his fingernails again. "I won't turn you in, though. You don't need to worry about that."

"Thanks," Neville said.

"Listen, Longbottom," Smith took a deep breath. "I can't join you. But if you need... a little help, every once in a while. From someone who's not involved. Not on a regular basis," he hastened to add. "Just a bit. If something happens."

"Thanks," Neville said again. "I'll remember that."

He started walking back to the Gryffindor common room. It would be nine soon. He didn't want to give the Carrows a reason to put him in the hospital wing again. After all, he had promised Madam Pomfrey two weeks of peace.

The next day he found himself in the hospital wing with a concussion.


	3. And if at first you don't succeed...

_There was someone in the cellar_.

It was a ridiculous thought. There had been someone in the cellar for over a year. Draco _knew_ this. The Dark Lord had been keeping Ollivander there. And interrogating him. Making him scream, especially after they had failed to capture Potter in July. Oh, how he screamed.

No one was screaming now, at least. The Dark Lord was gone, doing... whatever it was he was doing. Draco didn't know. Draco didn't _want_ to know. He was just glad the Dark Lord wasn't there, and that no one was screaming in the cellar.

_There was someone in the cellar_.

Not just Ollivander. That was the thing. It was someone Draco could know. Someone from school. Draco wasn't supposed to know about it, but he overheard a conversation between his mother and Bellatrix. Someone's parents made a fuss, but they were pure-blood and no one wanted to kill them because they were pure-blood, so they just took their child away. To keep them quiet. It was a pretty good strategy, Draco had to admit. He had a hard time imagining anyone causing trouble when their child was missing. The problem was that it meant someone he might know was locked up in the cellar.

All he had to do was get through Christmas. That was all. Three weeks of holiday, and he'd be back at Hogwarts, and then... and then he'd look at the faces missing at the hallways and start wondering which one of them was in the Malfoy Manor cellar.

Maybe it was Longbottom; maybe the Weasley girl. Or that oaf, Finnigan. Was Finnigan even pure-blood? He ran through his head the list of pure-bloods from the other houses, the blood-traitors who believed in Potter and Dumbledore and thought they still had a chance to win. He didn't come up with too many names. Maybe it was a first year, he tried telling himself, or a second year, one of those kids he didn't know and didn't care to know.

Maybe it wasn't.

A week had passed, then two, and the more time passed, the more Draco relaxed. The Dark Lord didn't show up at Malfoy Manor. There were no screams from the cellar. And soon, very soon, he'd be back at Hogwarts and wouldn't have to think of that person at all.

And then, one day, his perfect plan all came crashing down.

Something had happened, he knew it, but no one told him what. Only that Wormtail was needed elsewhere, and since they no longer had an house-elf, he was sent to feed the prisoners. A year ago, he would have probably objected. _He_ wasn't a house-elf, nor was he a servant; there was no reason that he should be sent to do servants' work.

This year was different.

He took the tray without a word. He bewitched it to follow him. He didn't want to go down with anything but his wand in his hand. "Step back," he called when he reached the top of the stairs. When he opened the door, no one jumped on him from within. No one even advanced on him. They didn't believe they could escape, he realised, so they didn't try. They didn't want to attack him. They didn't even come out - he didn't see their faces.

Still he was cautious. He made the tray hover into the cellar, then immediately locked the door again. Then he climbed up the flight of stairs. Only at the top of the stairs did he allow himself to breathe, leaning on the wall and wiping the sweat from his forehead. He stole a glance at the door below. Now he thought he could see - long, dirty blonde hair.

_Luna Lovegood was in the cellar_.

That night, the screaming started again. The Dark Lord was back.

Draco didn't come down for breakfast the next morning. He remained in his room. The screaming went on half the night - a good sign that the Dark Lord was angry. He did not want to come down and face him. Perhaps, he thought, if only he waited long enough, the Dark Lord would go away again.

It didn't work. At noon, his mother came to his room. "Draco," she said quietly. "He wants to see you."

Draco put on his best robes, and went down to pay his respects to the Dark Lord. But his Lord was not interested in gestures of respect - at least, not today. He already had something planned for Draco, and Draco realised it as soon as he went downstairs, and saw her long, dirty blonde hair.

"Ah, Draco," the Dark Lord said, his snake-like smile full of contempt. "I hear you've been taking classes on the Cruciatus curse at Hogwarts."

***

"Lovegood!" Draco whispered.

He was sitting on the bottom step, right next to the barred door to the cellars. The entire house was dark. Everyone was sleeping. Perhaps, he thought, Loony Loovegood was sleeping too.

But no - some movement behind the door, some shuffling, and he could hear someone's breaths on the other side of the door. He didn't see her face. All he saw was the long, dirty blonde hair.

"He's gone now," he whispered again. It had been a long week - one of the longest in Draco's life. But finally, it was over. And the Dark Lord was gone again.

Lovegood didn't answer.

"It's your father's fault, you know," he said. "He should have kept his big mouth shut. He should have realised they wouldn't let him keep at it for long."

No reply.

"What did he think would happen? What, he thought being pure-blood would _help_? Blood-traitors are just as bad. Well," he amended, "almost as bad. He should be grateful they didn't kill you. Or him."

"He's still alive then?" Lovegood asked quietly.

"Yeah. They don't want to kill him; he _is_ pure-blood."

"I'm glad," she said in a small voice. She didn't sound glad at all.

"Some of it is your fault as well, I reckon," Draco continued. "You following Potter. Instead of having some sense in your head and figuring out it's a lost cause. He's not coming back, you know. You lost. Time you accepted that. You and Longbottom both." He snorted. "What am I talking about, you and Longbottom having sense."

She didn't answer. He got up, ready to go to his room, when he heard her voice.

"We won't give up," she said.

"You will," he promised her. "In the end. They'll catch Potter and kill him and then you'll come round." He thought about it for a moment before he added, "And good riddance, too." The words didn't make him feel at all better, though.

***

Luna never answered any of the letters Neville had sent her during the holiday. And he didn't see her anywhere on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He could have missed her, he knew. He was almost late for the train. So he and Ginny boarded the train in a hurry and started looking through the compartment doors. After five minutes of that, they had to admit defeat and settled in the compartment currently occupied by Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan.

Luna simply wasn't on the train.

The answer came with Seamus, who walked into the same compartment a few minutes later. "I overheard Malfoy talking," he said darkly. "They got Luna."

"How d'you mean, 'they got Luna'?" Ginny asked in shock, while Neville asked, "What have they done to her?" urgently.

"I don't know," Seamus confessed. "He saw me listening in and stopped talking. I just heard him saying they have Luna. To get her father to shut up."

Now Neville understood. The _Prophet_ had been under Death Eater control ever since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named took over, but the _Quibbler_ kept on publishing the truth - and Xenophilius Lovegood openly supported Harry. Luna had said that the _Quibbler_ 's circulation was well up - there were plenty of people who wanted to know the real news, who wanted to know there were others out there, like them, who were thinking the same things, and were simply too afraid to say them out loud. There were plenty of people out there who wanted to believe Harry was still alive and fighting for them. The _Quibbler_ was all that and more, and it was no wonder the Death Eaters wanted to stop Xenophilius Lovegood's magazine.

He wanted to say, They would not go so low as to kidnap his daughter, but he knew better than that. The people they were dealing with were ruthless and evil and were willing to go to any length and employ any means they thought necessary to achieve their goal. The more terrible the means, he thought and remembered the Carrows, the happier they were.

If they wanted to, they could tell Xenophilius Lovegood they had his daughter, and force him to behave, and all the while Luna could be dead.

"Do you think they - " he started asking, then paused. Perhaps he didn't want to put this thought into words, to speak it out loud. Maybe saying it would make it more real. He thought they understood his question, though. He could see it on their faces.

"I hope she's alright," Ginny said quietly. They were all silent for a few minutes afterwards.

Hannah was the first to speak. "You know," she said, "if she's really... I mean, if they..." she took a deep breath. "If they really did kill her, I'd rather not know. I'd rather believe she's alive and well. I know it sounds stupid. But that's how I feel."

"I don't think it sounds stupid at all," Neville answered.

He thought he felt so too. He had convinced himself, all through that long - and mostly silent - trip back to Hogwarts that Hannah was right. There wasn't a damn thing he could do for Luna, so he would rather believe she was safe and well than think she was dead.

But at night, as he lay on his bed in the big and mostly empty dormitory room, he realised he was wrong. Maybe there was nothing more he could do for Luna either way, but he wanted to _know_. There were too many things he was busy hoping about - he was hoping Harry was okay; he was hoping they would find a way to defeat Voldemort. In his biggest hopes, he imagined Harry, Ron and Hermione coming back to Hogwarts and helping them get rid of the Carrows and of Snape; Harry would take his rightful place as the head of the DA and give Snape hell and they would _win_.

He was starting to run out of hope. He needed some facts. Even if they were the wrong sort of facts. But how was he going to get facts when the only people who had them were Death Eaters?

He searched for the answer for the whole next day. He was distracted in classes - still didn't stop Professor Sprout from awarding Gryffindor twenty points when he didn't get bitten by the Venomous Tentacula, or Professor Flitwick from awarding him fifteen points for showing up, but he barely registered those gestures.

Only when he was sitting in the library, waiting for Daphne Greengrass to show up so they could work on their Herbology project, did he find his answer. The only people who knew what had happened to Luna were Death Eaters, and there was a Death Eater sitting in the very same library, three desks in front of him, and writing an essay.

Neville advanced on Malfoy's table and stood above him. He had grown a bit taller during summer. In fact, if he wasn't much mistaken, he was now taller than Malfoy. He didn't think towering over him would help to intimidate the Death Eater, but it was worth a shot. At any rate, Malfoy seemed afraid of his own shadow these days.

"Malfoy," he said coldly. Malfoy jumped, then eyed him in anger.

"What d'you want, Longbottom?" he sneered.

Neville pulled his wand. "I want to know what happened to Luna."

Malfoy turned pale. He looked even more scared now. Neville clutched his wand in anger. Now Malfoy reached for his wand too. "Get lost," he said.

"I'm not going. Not until you tell me what's happened to Luna."

Malfoy got on his feet, wand in hand. "What do you think happened to her?" he said. It sounded like an attempt to sneer, but if it were, he wasn't making a very good job of it.

"Is Luna okay?" Neville demanded. His wand was aimed directly at Malfoy, and Malfoy's wand was aimed directly at him. Neither of them cursed the other yet, though.

"She'll be okay, as long as her oaf of a father keeps his mouth shut," Malfoy said, and this time it sounded more like his usual sneer. Neville clutched his wand harder, the anger rising in him.

"That's what I've been telling you this whole time, Longbottom," Malfoy continued, oblivious to Neville's anger. "Keep your mouth shut, or else, there'll be trouble. This is what happens when you people refuse to listen. People you care about get hurt."

"Is she hurt?"

Malfoy shrugged. Neville took a step closer, but he lowered his voice when he next spoke. "If something's happened to her, if she's hurt..." he started, and then heard a cough behind him.

"Is something the matter?"

Carrow.

Draco glared directly at Neville, but said nothing. Neither of them had lowered their wands.

"I said," Carrow repeated, sounding impatient, "is something the matter."

To Neville's surprise, Malfoy lowered his wand now. "No, sir," he said. His eyes left Neville's face, and turned to Carrow. "Everything's alright here."

"Are you sure, Draco? Perhaps Mr Longbottom could use some time in detention."

"No, sir, it's fine."

Carrow sounded disappointed when he muttered, "Alright, then, but don't let me catch you causing trouble, Longbottom," and left the two of them alone. Only then did Neville lower his wand. By then, Malfoy was already sitting back in his chair, quill in hand, and working on his essay. He didn't give Neville another look.

It wasn't a minute after Neville returned to his seat when someone settled next to him - Daphne. "Hi," she said.

"Hi."

He opened his book, but when she talked, it wasn't about the assignment. "He's not wrong, you know," she said quietly. "If you keep your heads down, you can survive this."

He ignored the comment. Out of all the Slytherins in the school, Daphne was the one he least wanted a fight with.

Perhaps she was encouraged by his silence. Perhaps she was worried about him, worried enough to talk, despite the fact he was clearly uninterested in the conversation, uninterested in the advice she had to give him. "You're pure-blood," she said. "They don't want to hurt you. They really don't. You keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, and you have a chance of survival. It's not going to get better, Longbottom. It's only going to get worse. And you're not going to win." Unlike Malfoy, there was no sneer in her voice. She didn't sound like she enjoyed saying this - as far as she was concerned, she was just stating the facts. She thought she was doing him a favour, he realised.

"We'll let history be the judge of that," he replied quietly.

"He's not coming back."

He could hear it in her voice. It wasn't an attempt to discourage him, it wasn't something she said because she thought it would help him accept matters and move on. It was - honest? Now Neville raised his eyes and looked at her. "What are you saying?" he whispered.

"Half the kids in my year are children of Death Eaters. You hear things in the common room, whether you'd like to or not."

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

" _What happened_?" he demanded.

"I don't know. I just heard things. Rumours. Things."

"What did you hear?"

She hesitated, then nodded. She didn't look happy when she spoke next. "Something's happened over Christmas. I don't know what. But the Death Eaters..." she hesitated again. "More than one person said that. Something's happened. He's not coming back," she said again. There was finality in her voice.

Neville closed his eyes. He didn't trust himself to look now at Daphne. He didn't trust himself to speak.

He wanted to say that it wasn't true, that it couldn't be true, but he knew better. He hated it, but that was the reality - the Death Eaters did know a lot more than they did. The Slytherins had more access to the news, the real news. Even if they weren't given the details. If Daphne heard that Harry was dead, then there was a good chance it was the truth.

It came to his mind now, so clearly, the last time he had seen him, on the train back from Hogwarts. Harry was so quiet then. They were sitting in the compartment with Luna. Ginny wasn't sitting with them back then - someone said they had split up after Dumbledore died. Harry didn't talk about it. Harry didn't talk about anything that entire ride home, not even when Ron and Hermione walked in. They just exchanged looks, then Ron and Hermione sat down, and the ride continued in silence.

Neville had thought at the time it was because of Dumbledore, because of whatever happened on the Astronomy tower, because of Snape. Now he knew it was because Harry had already known then that he wasn't coming back to Hogwarts. That there was a war ahead of him and that he had to fight. Did he imagine that within six months, he could be dead?

Did he realise what would happen to his friends without him? They couldn't do it. Not without Harry.

"We can do the assignment tomorrow," Daphne said softly next to him. He nodded, and she left. His eyes were still buried deep in his hands.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there. Perhaps twenty minutes; perhaps longer. But eventually he wiped his eyes and looked up defiantly. He already knew what he was going to do next.

He caught Hannah in the corridor, outside the library. "Pass the word," he whispered. "Room of Requirement, eight o'clock."

She looked at him curiously - they hadn't had a DA meeting, not an official one, at least, since the beginning of the year. It was too dangerous, Neville had agreed with Luna and Ginny. They needed to do things in a way that could not be traced to them.

If Hannah had questions, though, she saved them for later. Now she just nodded and went on her way. She did a good job of it, too: when Neville caught up with Terry Boot, Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein right before dinner, and approached to tell them, they nodded from afar, hinting that he did not need to come to them. They already knew.

There was one more thing he wanted to do, though, before he told the DA. If he didn't do it now, he thought, he might never get the chance to do it again.

The Great Hall was its usual busy self, loud and noisy with the voices of the students carrying through the room. He got up on his feet and climbed on his chair. Within seconds, a hush fell over the room. Over at the teachers' table, Professor McGonagall wrinkled her brow in confusing, while Snape looked directly at him. The kids at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff table, and even the Gryffindors, all looked at him curiously. Only Daphne Greengrass, over at the Slytherin table, shook her head slowly, as if to say, 'Don't do it'.

"I wanted to propose a toast," he said, loud and clear. "We're all back here after the Christmas holidays, but there are a lot of students that should be here - and aren't." Professor McGonagall's hand shot to her mouth. Snape started getting up. It was now or never, Neville knew, because he didn't have much longer before Snape or one of the Carrows tried to shut him up. "So I think, a toast to them - and mostly to Harry Potter," he said, then shouted, "Long live Harry Potter!"

Half the Great Hall erupted in cheers. There were a few boos, mostly from the Slytherin table. Neville climbed down off the chair and slipped out of the room quietly, to avoid Snape who was already progressing towards him. He didn't feel any elation, though, as he walked from the Great Hall straight to the Room of Requirement.

Neville entered the Room of Requirement fifteen minutes before eight o'clock. It looked a lot like it did during their fifth year. Maybe that was what Neville needed, he thought darkly. A reminder of what the room had looked like when Harry was there and in charge.

There were the books, all twelve volumes of _A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counter Actions_ , in all editions, and _Jinxes for the Jinxed_ , and in between them, right where he had seen Hermione last put it down, _The Dark Arts Outsmarted_. Neville opened the book. Hermione's bookmark still opened to page 346.

In a different corner, there were old copies of the _Daily Prophet_. Neville picked up one at random from the top of the pile - it had Bellatrix Lestrange's photograph on it. _Wanted_ , it said. The paper beneath it had Harry's photograph. He put the newspapers down.

Someone walked into the room - Ginny, accompanied by Rolf, a fourth-year Ravenclaw. "That was brilliant!" she said with a huge smile. "Sorry it took us so long, though, we had to evade Filch," she added, as if apologising for being late. There were still ten minutes to go. "I wish we had Harry's map."

Neville nodded. He wished they had Harry's map too. He wished they had Harry.

Slowly, the room started filling up. By eight o'clock, everyone was there. There weren't a lot of people in the DA now - not a lot compared to the meetings during their fifth year, at least. Some of the kids graduated; some did not come back to Hogwarts that year. Not just Harry, and Ron, and Hermione; Dean Thomas and Justin Finch-Fletchley, Colin and Dennis Creevey, and now Luna as well. Neville stopped the count in his head. It wasn't doing any good to anyone.

Everyone who was in the room was looking at him; some in confusion, others in anticipation. They thought his stunt at the Great Hall was a good sign, he realised. They were about to find out that he had nothing to offer them, no good news, except for an empty gesture. He didn't know how to break it to them gently. So he just said it.

"Word from the Slytherin common room is that they're dead."

"Luna?" someone asked sharply - Rolf the Ravenclaw. Neville shook his head.

"Not - Harry?!" Seamus said.

Ginny looked at Neville, stricken, and he could see it in her eyes, the request to shake his head again, to say that wasn't it, that Seamus had misunderstood, that he meant someone else. Neville stared at his palms.

The room was completely silent. When Neville next raised his head, he looked at them, at all the people in the room. Everyone looked so shocked and mournful. Ernie Macmillan's hand covered his mouth; Parvati Patil was hugging her sister Padma. He thought he saw tears in Lavender's eyes.

Among all the people, he sought Ginny. She still had that shocked, stricken look on her face. It wasn't just Harry, he knew. He was the only person in the room who knew that Ron was not at home with Spattergroit. But Ginny also had determination in her eyes, determination written all over her face, in the way she was biting her lips and in the way she was clutching her wand, and when Neville looked at her, she nodded and he knew they were both thinking the exact same thing.

"What are we going to do now?" Hannah whispered.

He didn't need to stop and ask himself what would Harry have done. He already knew the answer, deep down.

"We go on."


	4. ... Try and try again

_Dear Ginny,_

_I hope you are well. You haven't answered my last two owls. I hope this is because your family took you somewhere nice for Easter._

Neville stared at the parchment. He then scratched at the words and started again. _Dear Ginny,_ he wrote, _I haven't heard from you in a week, and I'm worried sick. Hannah says she hasn't heard from you either. Please reply to this owl and say that you're okay and haven't been caught by Death Eaters_.

He scratched over those lines too, but before he could think of another way to phrase his question, he heard a commotion downstairs. He opened his door and ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

It was the same Death Eater as the last time. Rowle. His gran was already facing the Death Eater, who was at least twice her size, her wand in hand. "I'm warning you," she commanded him, not at all intimidated, "this is private property, and you are trespassing!"

"Keep quiet, woman!" the Death Eater roared.

"What's going on here?" Neville asked quietly. He wasn't concerned - his gran could definitely take care of herself, even against a gorilla like Rowle, but perhaps he will think twice and save all of them the trouble of having to deal with the consequences.

"Ah, and here's your grandson. It's him I came to talk to," Rowle said.

Neville looked at his gran, and could see his own confusion reflected in her expression. "Me?" he asked. "What could you possibly want with me?"

"You going back to school tomorrow, aren't you? Got a message for you. From your teachers. Says if you don't behave this term, there will be trouble."

Neville scratched the thin scar that cut through his eyebrow. "I thought there already was trouble," he said.

"That's nothing compared to what will happen to you if you keep on giving 'em lip, boy," the Death Eater smirked.

"My grandson will act whichever way he sees fit," Gran now stretched and looked twice as tall as she was. Rowle looked intimidated for a moment, and Neville couldn't help but grin. "And he has my full blessing."

"I'll remember that, Mrs Longbottom, I'll remember you said that."

"Are you threatening me?!" she bellowed. The Death Eater, cowed and worried, left.

"Thanks, Gran," Neville said quietly.

Gran, who was much shorter than he was, had to stretch her neck to look him in the eye. She didn't do it often; she often complained it made her neck hurt. But she had done it a few times, especially in the past two years. After the events at the Ministry, she smiled and stretched her neck and told him he was starting to live up to his father. After the events last year, after Dumbledore died, she smiled and stretched her neck and told him his father would have done the same thing. She didn't smile now. She didn't talk about his father. All she said was, "I'm proud of you, Neville."

He leaned down and hugged her.

"I don't know what I will do here when you go to that school tomorrow," she said quietly.

"You'll piss off Death Eaters much better than I can," he said. "And more of them, too."

She laughed, then the moment was gone. The stern expression returned to her face. "Now go pack your trunk," she said, "it's getting late and we need to leave early tomorrow."

"Yes, Gran," he said and went upstairs to finish packing his trunk, and think of new ways to phrase the letter he wasn't going to send to Ginny.

The train ride to Hogwarts the next morning looked to be the most depressing he could ever think of. Ginny was nowhere in sight, not on the platform and not on the train. Neville dragged his trunk up on the train, worried and without real enthusiasm.

"Neville," someone called. Padma Patil. The entire DA - what was left of it - was sitting together, too large a group for one of the compartments, so they were sitting in the more public areas of the train, in one of the open carriages. He joined them, making his way slowly through the aisles.

He used to sit in this section a lot when he was younger. It took a while before he had close enough friends to sit with them in one of the compartments. During his first trip on the train, he sat down there, and then he lost Trevor and met Hermione and spent most of the ride walking around with one looking for the other.

The next rides, of course, he didn't sit with Hermione. By then, she spent all her time - including the train rides - with Harry and Ron. He always wanted to join them, and always was too afraid. They were the coolest kids in school, or at least in his opinion. He didn't want to ask to join them and hear them say no, so he never asked. Instead, he sat in the public carriage of the train on his own - well, with Trevor. A few years later, and at times he joined Dean and Seamus, at others he joined Parvati and Padma and Lavender, and then in the fifth year, all of a sudden, he found himself in the same compartment with Harry, because Ron and Hermione were prefects and Harry didn't have anyone to sit with either. For two years, that was his compartment - Harry and Luna and himself, and then Ron and Hermione at times as well.

Now he was in the common area again, but not because he had no one to sit with, but because he had too many friends who couldn't all make it into one of the compartments - and they were calling him, and wanted him to join them, looked almost eager to make a place for him right in the middle. And as he sat there he thought he would have given anything in the world to sit in a compartment, with Harry and Luna and maybe Ginny too, and have Ron and Hermione show up every once in a while to complain about Malfoy abusing his position, and spend the rest of ride talking about Nargles or something as daft as that.

Instead, he sat near the aisle, next to Anthony Goldstein and in front of Terry Boot. They were both very nice guys.

"Ginny's not on the train, is she?" Terry asked quietly. Neville shook his head. "Thought so. My dad works at Gringotts. One of Ginny's brothers works there too. My dad said they all went into hiding during Easter."

"So they're okay?" Neville asked, and he could feel the relief washing over him.

"My dad thinks so, yeah. He says Ginny's brother was at the bank when it happened. My dad's working with him, see. I dunno exactly what happened, but they knew in advance. All of a sudden there was one of those talking Patronus charms, telling him to get the hell out. So they're safe. Ginny's safe."

For a second or two, Neville buried his head in his hand. He was so overwhelmed by his relief, that he didn't think he could look at the others. He then breathed deep, thought he'd manage to control his emotions again - or, at least, limit them to the huge grin that was plastered all over his face - and he raised his head.

There was something next to his arm now. A note. Was it there before? Neville was sure it wasn't. He picked up the parchment and opened it. There were only three words on it, written in an unfamiliar handwriting.

_Potter's still alive_.

Alarmed, Neville got to his feet. Who could have - he hadn't looked at his surroundings for two seconds. Maybe three. No more than five. Who could have got the note there in that time? He looked around, but didn't see anyone walking down the aisle in either direction, anyone but Malfoy, who was walking to the toilet at the end of the carriage. Everyone else were in their seat.

Could it have been one of the people who sat in the seats next to his? But they were all DA members! If this information had come from a member of the DA, they wouldn't have sent an unsigned parchment - they would have all talked about it.

He looked down at the parchment again, reading and re-reading the words, over and over again. _Potter's still alive_. He wanted to hold the parchment forever, but the edge of the parchment caught fire magically. He had to throw it on the table in front of him. In a second, the flames engulfed the entire note. In another, nothing was left but the smallest heap of ashes.

"What was that?" Anthony Goldstein asked, the curiosity written all over his face.

Neville stared at the heap of ash for another moment before shaking his head and looking at Anthony.

The news soon spread throughout the entire carriage. When the trolley lady went past, they bought enough candy to have the biggest, loudest 'Support Harry Potter' party they could.

***

There were no more 'Support Harry Potter' parties after that. Despite the bout of unexpected good news, life at Hogwarts was more depressing than ever, and not just because of their missing friends. Now that they had a reason to believe Harry was alive, Neville kept on telling Seamus that he would come, he would come to save them from the Carrows and Snape and take over the school. But as the days went by and no Harry showed up, the fear and the doubt took over.

Neville kept on telling them, telling everyone, that they should wait, they should just wait, and Harry would show up. He dreamed about it at night, Harry showing up, with Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Luna - and sometimes with Dean - and driving the Carrows away. And Snape, too. Then he woke up to reality, where the Carrows reigned supreme and there was no scrap of news after that one, anonymous note, and his entire body ached after another round of detention that was mostly Goyle and Crabbe getting to show off their skills of the Cruciatus curse.

And then one evening Anthony Goldstein burst into the Gryffindor common room, after hours. "Neville," he rushed to him. "Michael's back."

Michael Corner had been missing that entire day. He sneaked out last night to release a first year Ravenclaw who talked back to the Carrows and was shackled in the cellars, and no one had heard from him since.

"Where is he?" Neville straightened up in his seat. Anthony's face spoke of nothing but worry.

"He's in the hospital. He wants to talk to you."

"I'm coming."

They had to be extra careful, sneaking out after hours. Not for the first time that year, Neville wished he had Harry's invisibility cloak, or at least his map. But they had neither of those things, so they had to look through corners or tiptoe up the stairs or take as many shortcuts as they could. Eventually, after much too long a trip in Neville's mind, they made it to the hospital wing and walked inside.

Neville saw Terry and Padma before he saw Michael. There were both sitting next to a bed at the end of the room. Neville ran the distance between them, and only paused when he saw Michael himself.

There was a huge bandage on Michael's face. It covered his forehead and one of his eyes, and went all the way to his mouth. His nose looked broken. The non-bandaged eye was almost closed, black and blue bruises around it. There were more cuts and bruises all over his neck, and one of his arms was in a sling. When he reached for water, Neville could see that the fingers on the other hand were broken too. Madam Pomfrey had left the bottle of Skele-Gro on the bedside table. It looked as if she thought she would have to use it more than once.

"Neville's here," Padma said quietly. Michael turned his head, but Neville wasn't sure he could see him through the small slit of his eye.

"Merlin, Michael," he whispered. "They turned you into a punching bag."

"They said..." he coughed, and Padma gave him some water. He drank a bit, then started again. "They said to give you a message. That this is nothing compared to what they'll do to you. If they catch you."

Neville thought of last night. They had graffitied the Headmaster's office again. This time from the inside. "They did this to send a _message_?" he asked, incredulous.

"Neville. You have to stop."

"No." Neville wasn't sure what angered him more - what the Carrows had done to Michael, or that they had done so only to make a point to Neville. But he wasn't going to let them win.

Michael pulled himself up to a sitting position. "Stay in bed," Padma said quietly, but Michael ignored her. He turned his nearly-closed eye to Neville. "This isn't a game," he said. "You don't understand how much they want you, Neville!"

"Snape won't let them," Neville shook his head, then said before Terry, Anthony and Padma could all offer their own objections and disbelief. "I know he's a Death Eater. And I know he's - he killed Dumbledore, I know who he is, I know _what_ he is! He's a scum and he's a lowlife, but he's been keeping them from crossing the line all year and don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have. Snape won't let them do anything too drastic."

"I'm not so sure, Neville," Padma said. "I overheard him shouting at the Carrows when they brought Michael here. And the Carrows shouted back. I don't think he can keep them at bay for long. Not if they decide... It might not be up to him."

"That time won't come," Neville said with a fake certainty he did not really feel inside. "By the time the Carrows get that much power, Harry will be back."

It used to be the magic word. Whenever Neville spoke of Harry, the others always listened. But this time, Michael wasn't buying it. "And what if Harry _is_ dead?" he demanded. "What if no one's coming? What if You-Know-Who has won? What then?"

"I'm not going to bow my head," Neville answered. "I'm not going to wait for this to go away. I'm not going to do what they want me to do and rely on the fact my father was a pure-blood wizard and my mother was a pure-blood witch and watch what they do to everyone else. You think I don't know how this ends? Yeah, if it comes down to that, then that's how it'll be. Either he's dead or I'm dead."

Terry looked at his fingernails. Padma bit her lip. Anthony sat down on a chair, pale and shaken. And Michael, who was sitting up in the bed, shook his head. "Maybe I'm a coward," he said quietly, "but I'm just not ready to die yet."

"You're not a coward," Neville whispered. "This isn't bravery, it's..."

"Longbottom," someone called his name. All five of them looked up. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout were all accompanying Madam Pomfrey to Michael's bed.

McGonagall looked for a moment at Michael, her lips pursed and her nostrils flared, then turned her gaze to Neville. "It's after hours," she said, but her voice was not stern or angry. It was almost soft. "Come, I'll escort you to your dormitories."

"It's fine, Professor, I can get there on my own," he started saying, but she shook her head.

"As long as you're escorted by a teacher, Longbottom, you cannot be considered at fault."

"Yes, Professor," he said quietly. He shook Michael's hand before he left. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Neville walked towards Professor McGonagall, but Madam Pomfrey stopped him. "Longbottom..." she started, then paused and shot a glance at Michael. "I don't want to see you here like this, Longbottom."

Neville nodded. He joined Professor McGonagall, and they left the hospital wing together. She didn't say a word that entire walk, not until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.

He was about to give the password, when he heard her saying his name. "Neville." He looked at her in surprise - it was the first time he had ever heard Professor McGonagall using his given name. "You need to be careful. _Really_ careful."

"I will be."

"It's not that the staff don't sympathise with what you're doing. It's not that we don't appreciate it. My own father..." she considered this for a moment. "But you need to understand the danger you are in."

"I do, Professor."

"What were you thinking, doing something as foolish as going into Snape's office?"

"I was thinking, What would Harry have done?"

The light from the hallway was reflected all of a sudden in McGonagall's eyes, as if they were full of water.

"He'll come back, Professor," Neville said. "You'll see."

He didn't add that he hoped Harry would come back _really soon_.

***

The Carrows didn't catch him in action. He was extra careful. He refused to let Hannah join now, not with him, though. He knew she would be in much more danger if she was associated with him this way. And unlike him, Hannah was half-blood, and even if he hated to think that way, it was something that had to be put into consideration.

Almost no one else got out at night anymore, to put on graffiti, or to sabotage the Carrows in any way they could. After Michael came Lavender, and then Padma was caught, and everyone was so afraid that they didn't dare keep fighting.

In the end, the Carrows got what they wanted. The students of Hogwarts bowed their heads now, did as they were told, kept quiet and hoped it would pass. Except for Neville.

And then, one morning, everything changed. An unknown owl dropped a letter at breakfast, right on his forehead. "Ouch!" Neville told the owl off, then picked up the letter. It was from Gran. Telling him that whatever anyone was going to say to him, she was alright and well. She just had to run. Run for her life, after they tried to take her in, because Xenophilius Lovegood had given up after they had taken Luna and maybe they thought Neville would shut up if they took his Gran away.

He couldn't help but smile when he read the letter. Rowle, it seemed, didn't actually remember what they told him, that night before term started. But his Gran was alright, and whatever they tried to do had failed.

And then another letter dropped on his forehead.

"What is it with the owls today?!" he demanded, then picked up the letter and started opening it, and all that before he realised it wasn't just a letter - it was a Howler. Who'd send him...?

The Howler was already exploding in his hand. He didn't know who it was from. He didn't recognise the voice. All he knew was the one word that the Howler offered, in a deep voice, magically magnified so it could be heard throughout the entire Great Hall. "Run."

The entire Gryffindor table looked at him. Kids in other tables stopped eating and stared at him as well. Professor McGonagall, who had been talking quietly and urgently to Professor Slughorn until that point, stopped and stared at Neville. And all of a sudden, Zacharias Smith shouted from the edge of the Hufflepuff table, the closest to the teachers' table: "Carrows!"

Neville had time enough to see the Carrows walk in, their wands held in front of them. There was no time to lose. He bolted out of his seat and towards the other door, the exit from the Great Hall and into the school.

"Catch him!" he heard Amycus Carrow shout, but no one tried to follow his command. The Carrows sent curse after curse at him. Some of them hit him; others missed. He felt pain in his arm, but he didn't stop running. The rest of the students all watched him as he ran. Even Snape, who had come down from his office and stood at the doorway to the Great Hall, even he did nothing as Neville ran right by him and up the stairs.

He needed to leave the castle. He couldn't leave the castle. He needed a place to hide. Gryffindor Tower. Too risky, they could force their way in. The passage to Hogsmeade. No, it was all blocked. The Room of Requirement. That was it. He jumped one staircase after the other, skipped the tricky step without giving it a second thought, and went up, all the way up, to the seventh floor, to the tapestry of the trolls in tutu, and walked past the blank wall three times.

The door appeared.

There was a hammock. There were a few books, textbooks for his N.E.W.T.s and some reading books - there was even a comic book of the Adventure of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle - the same volume he had started reading in his Gryffindor dormitories, too. There was a toilet and a change of clothes and a bandage for his arm and everything he needed.

Almost everything he needed, he realised around noon, when he started feeling hungry and noticed that there was no food in the room. All the wonderful things in it - and the only thing missing was _something to eat_. If the room was a person, it would have received a raised eyebrow and a 'Really?', said in an admonishing tone. But the room was a room, and admonishing it would have done no good.

It wasn't that big a problem at first. Neville told himself he could last a few hours without food, and by evening someone was bound to realise he was there and bring him something.

And then it was after nine p.m. and Neville realised no one was coming and that he was _starving_. "Really?" he admonished the room out loud. It was foolish, but after a full day in there, all by himself - and with no food - the silence was becoming overbearing. He wondered where everyone was, and whether the Carrows kept watch on them, with the hope they would lead them to Neville.

"I really need something to eat," he told the room.

And then something caught his eye - a movement, somewhere in the room. He turned around, looking for the source of the movement - could it be one of the Carrows? Had they found him? But it was only a portrait. The portrait of a teenaged girl.

He hadn't noticed it before. He was quite sure it wasn't there a moment ago. But it was there now. There must be a reason that it appeared, he realised. Perhaps the room was talking back after all.

"I really need something to eat?" he hazarded again. The girl smiled. And then - and then it was like the Fat Lady's portrait. The painting opened up, and revealed a tunnel behind it. A tunnel no one knew about, because it hadn't been there until that very moment. A tunnel - out?

He didn't hesitate. He only paused to light his wand, then started walking. It took about twenty minutes - roughly the same time as the secret passage to Honeyduke's, he thought. He was going to Hogsmeade.

He didn't end up at Honeyduke's, though. He ended up in a well lit room, a sitting room with a fireplace and a carpet. Neville paused in alarm. Somebody's house? But the Room of Requirement wouldn't send him to a place of danger, he thought. No way. There must be something more to it.

He looked around until he spotted a flight of stairs. Slowly, quietly, he tiptoed down the stairs until he reached the bottom step, from which he could already see the bar. He knew this place.

He was in the Hog's Head.

The pub was all but empty. There was a curfew in Hogsmeade now, Neville knew. It said so in the _Daily Prophet_. There was no living soul there, except for the old barman, who was sitting on a chair, reading a newspaper - and then looked up straight at Neville.

His mouth opened in surprise, formed a perfect 'O'. Then his eyes seemed to go over Neville, registering the bandage and the scars left by the Carrows. And then he looked at the locked door, as if to confirm that was not where Neville had come from.

"How did you get in here, boy?" he asked gruffly.

"There was a tunnel," Neville answered, not quite sure what to say, only positive that he didn't want to lie. "Through a portrait. From the, uh, from the Room of Requirement. Hogwarts. I've been hiding there, but I was getting a bit hungry," he admitted.

The old barman studied him again before speaking. "You're Longbottom, aren't you?" he asked, and didn't wait for Neville's answer. "Yeah, I remember you, hanging out here with Potter. You've got your mother's face, Longbottom. Come on, I'll get you something to eat."

By the end of dinner, Neville ended up telling the old barman everything, more or less, and hearing some things from the barman too - such as learning that his name was Aberforth Dumbledore, that he was Professor Dumbledore's brother, and who the girl in the portrait was.

Ab thought he should stay there, in his pub, but Neville said no; his place was at Hogwarts. When the time came, he said, they would fight, and Neville should be among the fighting. Ab called him a fool, asked if he didn't feel he had enough scars. "You don't need a scar on your forehead to prove yourself, boy," he said. Neville ignored him. In the end, he got a large basket full of food, and a promise that when he needed more, he would get it.

The next morning, Parvati showed up in the Room of Requirements; she had a bag full of Neville's clothes and some food she had managed to steal from the kitchens. She looked nothing short of devastated when she saw Neville absolutely did not need these things, but it didn't last long - she was too relieved to see that Neville was there, and that he was alright.

"Oh, this place is brilliant!" she said and looked around in excitement, picking up this and that. "Sorry we didn't come last night," she told him. "We figured you were here, but the Carrows wouldn't let us out of their sight. Seamus tried sneaking in here once and got caught. They're still questioning him now," her face darkened. "I hope he's alright. But it gave me the opportunity I needed to get here."

"Thanks," he said.

"I wish I could keep you company," she said, and sounded genuinely disappointed. No wonder - unless Neville's memory was fooling him, she was facing two hours of Muggle Studies.

"It's okay, I'm good," he said. "I'm safe here. Safer than you lot. Just a bit lonely."

He didn't stay lonely for long. Seamus tried to sneak him food next, or just come visiting after he heard Parvati's story, and was seen by the Carrows. After he managed to enter the Room of Requirement, he could't risk coming out. The Room seemed to realise that - all of a sudden, there were two hammocks there.

Michael Corner was next. He spoke out, in the end, in one of the Dark Arts classes, and wasn't going to stick around for another beating. Padma came with him, and once she did, so did Parvati. Hannah Abbott had an outburst during Muggle Studies, and no one was more surprised than Ernie Macmillan when he stood up and backed her up. They found their way to the Room of Requirement not long after. Lavender wasn't going to stay on her own too much, and showed up next; the Room seemed to be slightly intimidated of her, Neville thought. She started complaining that there weren't any showers there, and then they appeared all of a sudden. Even the hammocks didn't appear as fast as that, even though by now there must have been a dozen of them.

And then came the night Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot came bursting in. Everyone got up in alarm - Terry was bleeding hard, and could barely stand on his feet, but he didn't look upset. He looked elated. He kept on waving a piece of parchment at them and shouting excitedly.

It took almost ten minutes before both he and Anthony calmed down enough so that the rest of them could understand what was going on. The piece of parchment was a letter. The letter was from Terry's father. Terry's father worked at Gringotts, the wizarding bank. And according to Terry's father -

"Harry did _what_?!" Neville yelled in delight.

"They broke in?!" Parvati said, stunned.

"They broke _out_?!" Michael was equally as stunned.

" _A dragon_?!" Lavender and Seamus said in unison. "Well," Lavender added weakly, "He always had a thing for dragons..."

"Oh my god, they're alive," Hannah kept on saying, and Neville went to her and hugged her tight. "They're alive."

Above Hannah's head, Neville saw something else. Ariana Dumbledore had come to her portrait, although she was had not been called. Ab wanted him in the Hog's Head. Neville didn't dare hope, but deep inside, he thought he knew the reason.

"Listen," he asked her quietly, "d'you still have your coin? The DA coin?"

"Yeah," she said, confused.

"Use it. If Luna, or Ginny, or Dean, or anyone - use it. I think they're coming here. They need to know, the Order needs to know."

"Yeah, sure. Where are you going?"

Neville gestured at the portrait. "Ab wants a word," he said. He didn't want to say anything more. Just in case he was wrong. He didn't want to think anything more. Just in case he was wrong. He jogged down the tunnel and towards the Hog's Head, trying to get there as quickly as possible, and all that time he told himself, It isn't them, it's something else, it's someone else, don't get too excited, it isn't them.

And then the portrait opened on the other end and he saw that mess of jet-black hair, so familiar, and he knew, he just knew everything was going to be alright.

***

At last, people were getting tired. The adrenaline rush, the excitement was abating, they were all calming down now. For the first time in hours, Neville was allowed to stop talking, for the first time in hours he was not surrounded by people who demanded to hear again and again how he had broken free of Voldemort's curse, how he had pulled the sword out of the hat, how he had destroyed the snake.

He didn't get it. It was as if they weren't even there, he thought in confusion. It was as if they didn't actually see him. But they did! They all knew what had happened, they all saw it, so why did they want him to tell it all over again?

He wasn't going to ask them now. No, he was going to use the freedom he found and get the hell out of there. He was tired too; no, he was exhausted. He craved sleep. He didn't think he'd manage to climb all the way to Gryffindor tower. And he didn't know what to do with the damn sword.

No one had asked him to give it to them yet. No one had said that maybe he should put it down or give it to the Minister or something like that. He just kept on clutching it. He left the Great Hall, or what was left of it, still holding the sword.

There was a small space, not far from there. The walls had fallen on both sides, creating the small occluded space, almost hidden from the rest of the corridor. Neville wasn't quite sure how he spotted it himself. It looked perfect, the perfect hiding place. Maybe he'd be able to fall asleep there, he thought and yawned.

He had just settled down when someone sat next to him on the ledge. How did they find me? he thought in frustration bordering on desperation. He almost opened his mouth to ask whoever it was to go away and please, just leave him alone and let him sleep, and then he saw who it was.

Harry looked... about the same as Neville felt, really. Perhaps a bit worse. Neville could see the exhaustion in his eyes, the shock that was slowly coming to replace the euphoria. Neville wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to express everything that was going through his head. In the end, he just said, "Thank you," and hoped that even though it wasn't enough, Harry would understand.

Harry bit his lip for a moment. His eyes searched for something in Neville's face, but Neville didn't know what it was. It was as if he was looking for a sign, a clue, something to tell him what to do - but what could it possibly be that had something to do with Neville?

Then he nodded. "You remember that room in the Ministry? The one with the prophecies? From our fifth year?"

"Sure," Neville said in growing confusion. Of course he remembered. How could he ever forget? He had fought there, side by side with Harry.

"There was a prophecy there. About me and Voldemort."

"Yeah, the Chosen One thing. But it was destroyed." Neville looked at him sheepishly for a moment. "I dropped it."

"Dumbledore showed me a copy," Harry said quietly. "When we came back. It didn't mention me by name, you see. It just gave signs. Which boy it was talking about. When he would be born and stuff like that. He chose me, in the end, but it didn't have to be me. There was someone else it could have been."

Neville's mouth opened in surprise. Harry and Neville had almost the same birthday. Surely Harry wasn't saying what he thought he was saying?

"Could have been you."

It took Neville a long time to answer. He wasn't sure he knew what he thought about what Harry was telling him even then. "I'm glad it wasn't me. Don't get me wrong," he added quickly. "I know this whole thing, I mean, you.. I don't mean it's good that it happened to you. But that's the thing, see. I'm glad it wasn't me. I'm not as brave as you. I couldn't have done it."

Harry reached for the Sword of Gryffindor. Neville handed it to him gladly - after all, it belonged to Harry much more than it belonged to Neville; but Harry didn't want to take it. He just passed his fingers over the golden letters, the name that was etched on the sword. _Godric Gryffindor_. Then he looked again at Neville, and for just a moment, his exhaustion made way to something else - affection, elation, _pride_.

"You would have done magnificently."


End file.
